Talmudic Dialogical Forms as Greco-Roman Rhetorical Exercises

This paper first compares progymnasmatic school exercises with Midrash Halakha and other Talmudic sugyot, especially in their use of a dialogic format. Specifically, ta shema sugyot are comparable to exercises of confirmation and refutation and are thereby doubly dialogical in that they present a dialectical argument for one side and pit it up agaisnt another dialectical argument on the other side.

We then probe parallels between rabbinic texts and the advanced declamations called controversiae, which offer arguments on both sides of theoretical legal cases. Both Greek orators and the rabbis took special pride in developing argumentational skills using outlandish theoretical cases, although the rabbis usually chose somewhat more realistic scenarios. Greek rhetorical training assumes a cynical stance towards truth as it strives to perfect the students’ ability to persuade an audience of any position, the more preposterous the better. Talmudic ta shema sugyot, in contrast strive to uphold all sides of a halakhic controversy because all possible viewpoints are imbued with Sinaitic prophetic authority. Therefore, disproving any one given viewpoint is considered a failure and the sophistic skill for arguing all sides helped the rabbis realize their belief in multiple prophetic truths.

In these sugyot, the rabbis appropriate and apply widespread Hellenistic rhetorical techniques in the service of maintaining and transmitting their own particularistic religious traditions. The paper concludes by tracing the Talmudic dialogic format to rabbinic educational settings and thier parallels in Greco-Roman rhetorical schools.